


Following Signs

by supercantaloupe



Series: d20 alphabet 2021 [4]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Backstory, Campaign 01 Season 02: Fantasy High Sophomore Year (Dimension 20), Dreams, Fantasy High Sophomore Year Spoilers (Dimension 20), Gen, Pre-Canon, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29708430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercantaloupe/pseuds/supercantaloupe
Summary: For as long as she can remember, Ayda Aguefort has dreamed ofsomething.
Series: d20 alphabet 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178252
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: Dimension 20 Alphabet 2021





	Following Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt, day 4: Dreams.

For her whole life -- or, at least, this incarnation of it -- Ayda has dreamed of  _ something. _ As a young one under the watchful care of Garthy she couldn’t place what it was exactly, despite feeling it gnaw and tug at her heart inside her all the time. She’d feel it when she would see Garthy laughing, chatting, schmoozing, charming effortlessly the patrons of their beloved Gold Gardens, and the familiar faces with whom they seemed to get along particularly well. Ayda studied them so closely from her table in the corner, instructed to eat her dinner and not wander off (lest her little eyes see something they oughtn’t yet), taking notes in a journal with a quill plucked from her own wing. The ink dried almost instantaneously with this pen; she crossed a lot of things out as she wrote, correction after correction after correction.

She wondered at first, perhaps, if her dream was to have a home as lively and hospitable as the Gold Gardens. But she already had a home: that grand library up in Crow’s Keep she’d already spent lifetimes curating. (Her notes said so. Garthy said so.) But it was as an adolescent when she first began to understand what she dreamt of. 

At 12, she took an interest in the divination books of her extensive collection of wizard tomes. More than any other school, they fascinated her. The words on these pages told her that with diligence and study and practice, she could divine the nature of the universe, of prophecy, of dream. She poured over her books, and began writing a new one of her one: a journal, always slung safely from a belt round her hip, close at hand when she sleeps perched in the rafters to write anything and everything she can remember of her dreams. 

At 13, she discovers her Friendship Section. The year’s worth of subconscious thoughts and scrambled attempts at deciphering their meanings scratched into her journal now focused into crystal-clear understanding: this was her dream. This was what she’d been dreaming of, not just in this lifetime but  _ before, _ too.

She could run her fingers along the rows and rows of books that neatly lined the shelves here, and read them all cover-to-cover over the next five years, yet never make any new progress. She could study Garthy’s interactions again, but failed utterly and miserably to replicate their successes when she tried for herself. She could ponder for hours and hours over every dream -- for she still had them most nights -- to unwind their meanings, what they were telling her. They had to mean  _ something. _ They had to be foretelling  _ something. _ She’s been studying divination, too, and she’s quite good at it now. Not just in dreams, she can see it, but there are signs everywhere: the drift of the city under the stars, the leaves of tea swirled in the bottom of her empty cup.

One day as Rawlins sweeps up sand on the floor of the observatory, she screeches for him to halt and flies down.  _ “Wait!”  _ she commands, very carefully maneuvering her landing so as not to blow any grains astray. The old pirate grunts his confusion as the wizard bends over the messy floor, intently staring down, memorizing the patterns in the sand. It spells out  _ something, _ she can just  _ feel it. _ With another screech, she takes off again and flies up to her perch, producing her journal and immediately opening it to write something.

“Mistress, the sand?” Rawlins croaks.

“Back to work, Rawlins!” Ayda commands again, not looking up.

Her dream, last night, something was different about it. The leaves in her tea that morning had been strange. Now, the sand, swept across the floor in patterns that couldn’t possibly be mere coincidence. She combs through her fortune telling books, trying to divine what is meant by it all, what is coming. All she can tell is that something is coming, and soon, something big.

That night she stays out til dawn, searching the sky and all its stars for answers. She feels her heart stir, and wonders if this is her dream.

Being up all night, she naps through the morning on her perch in the observatory. She doesn’t dream this time; odd. Something is up. 

She’s awoken from her sleep by the sound of unfamiliar young voices. She screeches awake and takes off, landing in a flourish of flame before the group, and looking them over. Strange-looking adolescents, like her. 

They chatter and giggle among themselves as though she cannot hear. “Guys, guys, I think this is the creature Arthur Aguefort made for me.” “No.” “No!” “This is a full person. This is a full, sentient person.” “It was kind of wishful thinking!” “Fig, you should feed it.” “What are you, I , excuse--”

One of them holds out a hand of food. Ayda stares at them. “Do you offer this food to me as a gift?”

The person blinks. “Yes.”

“Then I do not accept. I will be in no one’s debt as a wizard.”

“Oh, okay.” They shrug and eat the food themself. Ayda cocks her head to the side, perplexed.

“Are you now in your own debt?” she asks. 

They chatter amongst themselves again. “Are you eating birdseed?” “I owe myself.” “Aren’t we all in our own debt?”

Ayda’s eyes widen slightly and she nods curiously. “Oh, are we all in our debt?” Something in her chest begins to burn a little. The patterns in the stars, the sand, the tea leaves, there is a resemblance here, coming back to the front of her memory.

They are noisy, and they are rowdy, and they are rude, and very confusing and overwhelming. But more than anything else, they are compelling. And Ayda watches them jabber and jostle and stumble over themselves to talk with her and she sees in them what she has always been missing, what she has always been dreaming of. And her longing for it burns more brightly now than ever, with it so close. 

“150 gold pieces and I will honor this favor for my friend Garthy O'Brien and give you the spell,” she offers to the group, after a frankly ridiculous amount of distraction and tangenting for one conversation. The blonde elf of their group hands her the money and Ayda leads her off into the library. Her friends spread out to explore other sections on their own, but as they walk together, the elf talks lightly about what she and her friends are here for, about their quest and her magic. 

When Ayda gets her settled into a study space with the necessary books on Sending, she leaves her be to work alone. As she goes, she produces her dream journal and makes a note.  _ Check back later -- this is your dream. _

**Author's Note:**

> rebloggable [here,](https://supercantaloupe.tumblr.com/post/644149057771700224/dimension20alphabet-prompt-fill-4-dreams-title) prompt list [here.](https://dimension20alphabet.tumblr.com/post/643573819181776896/prompt-masterlist)
> 
> thank you for reading! <3


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